


runaway

by fiveofswords



Series: One shots - DBH rarepairs week [6]
Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: High School AU, M/M, same age au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-04
Updated: 2020-04-04
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:40:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23473372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fiveofswords/pseuds/fiveofswords
Summary: For rarepairs week over tumblr. Prompt: Ride or Die.
Relationships: Leo Manfred/Gavin Reed
Series: One shots - DBH rarepairs week [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1483076
Comments: 10
Kudos: 23





	runaway

They met at the foster home.

Gavin went in and out of them regularly since he’d been put in the system, nosy neighbors disturbed by his parents nasty fights had cared enough about the neglected child overridden with lice to call the authorities.

Gavin had been taken away, so he wasn’t there when his house and surname ended up plastered all over the news just like his dad’s brains, and that same nosy neighbor on the TV, framed by the yellow tape, telling to whomever would listen he’d seen this coming all along, you could see that man had lost his marbles from the get go and the missus none the better, it happened one way but it could have easily been the other, the world was better off without them, god bless.

All of this did Gavin no favors, he’d dodged that bullet, but hopeful parents weren’t overeager to take on so much baggage, by the time the powers that be decided to send him farther away from home so his name wouldn’t be linked to the crime scene, by the time it was all forgotten, he’d already decided he hated everyone, and if everyone thought he would kill them in their sleep he’d make sure their fears were justified, even if he had been worryingly stuck at 5’9 for a while, he blamed malnutrition.

When Leo was dropped off at the foster home, Gavin had recognized him immediately, all the kids there did, with his good clothes and his puffy, red eyes, it was like that movie about the stupid cartoon dogs, where the cute dog is taken to the pound, and everyone is jealous of her because they know she’s different and she’ll be out of there in no time. That’s what kids like Leo were, pedigree dipshits that were there for half a day crying their eyes out while relatives were located and arrangements were made.

Pedigree idiots were either bullied or ignored for their 10 minutes of residence, when it was clear that Leo would fight even while crying most of the kids concluded the latter option was best; but by the second week tension started to settle in, was Leo staying after all? If so the pecking order had to be established, there were one or two fights before Leo had come to Gavin maybe deciding in either a rare stroke of smarts or extreme dumbassery, (it was always hard to tell with Leo) that if he defeated the one at the top of the food chain he’d be left alone.

Gavin threw a punch right at Leo’s face, and Leo in the wild flailing he called fighting had punched Gavin in the jaw, getting him just right in the tooth that had been hurting like a bitch for weeks, Gavin was knocked down to the floor from tooth ache, his jaw throbbing, an abscess ruptured, he vomited. Someone was screaming at them for ruining the carpet, Leo’s blood was everywhere.

Gavin was forcibly taken to have a root canal done, Leo’s nose was patched up.

“I’m sorry I fucked up your mouth” Leo said when he found him that night,

“You just got lucky” Gavin mumbled, the anesthetic working better now than it had at the dentist’s office

“Here” Leo said offering Gavin a granola bar, those things were almost currency

“Are you fucking with me?” Gavin spat “I can’t feel my mouth right now, genius”

“But you will … right?”

“Whatever” Gavin said snatching the prize out of Leo’s hands

Leo sat next to him though he hadn’t been invited, Gavin didn’t know what in the fuck was happening

“Why the fuck are you still here?” Gavin snarled

Leo shrugged, trying to make the gesture look light and careless “I think my dad hasn’t returned their calls and stuff,”

Gavin had meant why the fuck was Leo still sitting next to him but it was just like this self centered dumbass to interpret it differently

“Don’t you worry, fucking dummies like you are always picked up”

“I can punch you again, you know”

“Whathefuckever, I don’t feel my face anyway”

Gavin wasn’t wrong, soon enough Leo was picked up to be taken to his dad’s house, he’d given Gavin a hug goodbye, a real hug with a gentle squeeze, and maybe some of the dummy’s luck had rubbed off on him then because a few days after Leo left it was Gavin’s turn.

Hank Anderson never thought he’d be fostering a child, maybe even adopting the child. Jeffrey and his wife fostered often, Hank hadn’t paid that much attention to it, until now, until his bad days were something he could think about in past tense.

Hank talked it with Jeffrey, with Connor, it was worth the try, not a young child though. Hank didn’t feel good about that, that would be unloyal to Cole, and yeah, it may be an illogical thought, but it was his thought and dammit he was old and what of it if he wanted to be stubborn on this one, but maybe an older kid would be alright, a teenager, maybe an unruly one that was running out of options fast. Hank could deal with that. Hank got Gavin. 

Gavin entered any new situation with suspicion and aggression it had worked well for him so far, and anyway at 16 he was almost a fucking adult, he didn’t need any fucking geezer breathing down his neck, who knew if the guy was a creep, certainly not the social workers. When the geezer opened the door to his house it was even worse, there was a dog, a fucking big fucking dog. Gavin stepped back

“Nothing to be afraid of, son” Hank reassured him “Old sumo wouldn’t hurt a fly”

“I’m not fucking afraid” Gavin spat “And I’m not your fucking anything!”

“Are we going to have a problem?” Hank said raising a serious eyebrow “First five seconds, we are going to set a record, I don’t want to give that old bat that dropped you off the damn satisfaction”

Gavin had to admit the geezer had a point “I’m not afraid of the dumb dog” Gavin said surly

“Fine, but the dog is not dumb,” Hank said patting Sumo, in a way that said, ‘nevermind moody teenagers’ “come in, then”

Pretty soon it was evident to Gavin that the only creepy thing about the geezer was his cringe music collection. Hank didn’t care if Gavin was messy, or if he put his feet up on the coffee table, he didn’t care if Gavin swore as long as he didn’t swear at the dog, and Gavin was perfectly cool with the dog as long as the dog didn’t drool all over his shit, he may have even patted Sumo’s head once when the geezer was at work. Gavin had a curfew but he didn’t really mind, there wasn’t anywhere for him to be after 10 pm anyway, and lacking someone to fight, he’d gone and enrolled in the wrestling summer course at the school, where for the first time his talent for messing people up was a plus. 

Gavin was aware of his luck, he could sit here and wait to turn 18; there were worse places to be; the awkward dinners Hank would insist on having together, where they sat in silence, none of them knowing what to say, trying to pretend the silence wasn’t fucking uncomfortable, all the conversation starters Hank threw out there fizzling and dying like mosquitoes bumping against a bug zapper and falling on the table miserably, those lame fucking dinners were a very cheap price to pay for a room all to himself, a bathroom he only had to share with one other person, and knowing he could sleep and nobody would come try to steal his shit or try to fuck with him.

When school started in autumn, he didn’t have any plans to make friends, but he’d already had a head start, his wrestling teammates saw him as one of them, Gavin somehow ended up hanging out with Chris a lot, even if Chris fucking sucked at the sport, members of the cheerleading team would say hi to him in the halls, he didn’t know their names, he didn’t care to know them, but they saw him as part of the team.

And then there was Tina, Gavin didn’t know quite how that had happened, you didn’t meet Tina, Tina was something that happened to you. Gavin liked her leagues better than anyone at the school, he could talk to her and Tina would actually listen to what he was saying, not just make her own fucking version of it in her head like most of the other stupid kids. Soon he found himself sitting with Tina and Chris at lunch and not hating it, and he’d feel, somewhat uncomfortably, that maybe all of this was actually working out for him.

And one day there was Leo, somehow, standing with his lunch tray in his hands and a fading black eye, looking around the hall with the lost, unseeing gaze of someone who doesn’t really have anyone to find but will put on the show of it anyway.

“Dumbass!” Gavin called out waving at him, as if he were fucking possessed, he didn’t know the idiot, what the fuck.

But Leo didn’t need more of an invitation; he sat next to Gavin, with what seemed a sigh of relief, Gavin’s two friends stared expectantly, waiting for him to make some sort of introduction, which Gavin, of course, didn’t.

“Hey, I’m Leo” Leo said introducing himself, sounding more natural and friendly than Gavin would ever have

“You got transferred?” Tina said lightly after introducing herself and Chris

“More like, forcibly removed from my old school, really” Leo said with a sheepish shrug

“How do you know Gavin?” Chris asked, trying to direct the conversation towards less awkward places

“He broke my nose at a foster home?” Leo’s words got higher to end in the pitch of a question as he realized everything in his life leading to this moment had been a mistake. “but, I also really fucked up his abscessed tooth, so it was even!”

“Oh! I can totally see that!” Tina said chirpily, kicking Gavin’s shin under the table, that was a story she hadn't heard before

It was that easy, from not knowing the dumbass to suffering the dumbass daily. The excited way in which he’d tell Gavin about ice skating, the disgusting way in which he’d puke all over himself when he drank way too much at stupid parties. Leo would take Gavin’s notebooks only to draw dicks with stupid cartoon faces on them, or if he was in a very good mood cute cats, Gavin had counted 3 cats so far.

They would go on their bikes and race each other until their leg’s shook, they signed up to help at the animal shelter, and agreed to keep it a secret nobody else would know about, although Tina eventually found out and Gavin suspected Hank was not as clueless about it as he pretended to be. Some evenings they’d hang out at Hank’s and Leo would make him listen to weird albums as they sprawled lazily on the living room floor.

“You staying for dinner, kid?” Hank would ask if he found them there when he arrived from work

“Yes!, if I can,” Leo would reply brightening up “can I?”

“Sure you can, but text your dad I don’t want him wondering where the hell you are” Hank would say gruffly, still self-conscious of the easy way in which his manner slipped into a fatherly one “Dinner will be ready in 10 minutes, so get a move on!”

Leo chuckled softly when Hank left the room

“What?” Gavin asked

“Get a move on, is something you say now too” Leo said with a smirk “you got it from him”

“Many people say it” Gavin argued which only made Leo’s smirk grow wider “Shut the fuck up!” Gavin barked but that only made Leo chuckle again

With Leo there the dinners couldn’t be quiet anymore, he was always eager to babble nonsense, fueled by even the slightest trace of attention, so Hank’s conversation starters didn’t die on the spot; sometimes Connor would join them too, and that would give Gavin and Hank enough material to keep something akin to conversation when they were alone.

“Any plans for the weekend?” Hank asked as they washed their dishes, it was always easier to talk if they were busy doing something else

“Want to know if you’ll have the house to yourself for a cringe old people date?”

“Yeah that’s right, need to know if I can make plans or if I have to leave space to go search for you when you don’t turn up like last time”

“That was only because Leo drank too fucking much, I couldn’t fucking ditch him at that stupid party”

“Bit of a wild card that one” Hank said, still focusing on the soapy water, Gavin tensed foreseeing the start of a ‘you need better friends’ conversation

“Listen, kid” Hank continued “Next time, and with that one there will be a few next times, you call me, got it? I’ll pick you two up, he can sleep it off here”

“We are only going to the lake,” Gavin said, trying to avoid committing to anything, still instinctively suspicious of being offered good things without strings attached “we are taking our bikes”

“Does Manfred know about it?”

Gavin shrugged as he dried a glass

“Hmph” Hank grunted noncommittally “be back by 7, I don’t want you two out there after dark… and no drinking!”

“Yes, sir” Gavin replied, without as much of his usual sarcasm

But there were also the days in which Leo would be angry, and his mood would only get stormier as he ruminated over all the things that annoyed him without being able to let any of them go

“I’m just pissed off like all the fucking time” Leo would say on those days looking trapped

Gavin could see it, he knew the feeling, and he’d listen to Leo rant about his dad not caring a rat’s ass about him.

“He only throws his stupid money at me, he didn’t even come after mom died, he didn’t even come to the school when they expelled me! They ended up sending him an email” Leo said stomping his foot against the floor, looking foolish and powerless. Gavin decided he’d throw Carl Manfred down the stairs one day, accidents happened, they would never be able to prove anything.

“It’s all Markus this and that,” Leo went on “he’s not even his fucking kid, that’s me and he wouldn’t even notice if I disappeared, I’m just going to fuck off!”

“You aren’t serious”

“I fucking am!” Leo shouted “If I stay I’ll lose my fucking mind!”

Unlike Leo, Gavin had ran away before, he knew what the fuck that entailed. The cold, the hunger, the creepy fuckers just waiting for you to take your guard down, it was scary and lonely and hopeless, and Leo was not made for any of that.

“Right,” Gavin said crossing his arms “So where are we going?”

They made a plan, which involved less than honorable things like stealing some of Manfred’s paintings to sell, but they would need the money and the old prick could always paint more. 

The date was set, everything was ready there were only a few more details to talk over,

“We should book a hotel” Gavin said “So we have a place to stay, I have enough in my savings for that”

Leo didn’t reply, he only stared blankly at their notes

“Anyone there?” Gavin said

“Yeah, sorry”

Gavin should have known there was something odd then, Leo was nothing if not absorbed by their future plans.

Later that day when Leo didn’t show up at the shelter Gavin knew for certain something was off; they both would skip school sometimes but never the shelter, Gavin checked his phone, no notifications, an oddity, Leo’s phone was all but fused to his hand. He opened his notebook anxiously turning the pages waiting for a reply when his eyes fell on a new note.

_“I’m going away”_ the dumbass wrote _“Sorry for not saying goodbye, but It’s better if I go alone, I have your phone number but I’m leaving my phone at home just like we planned, it’s so creepy that they can track you with it. I will try to call you when I’m somewhere_ ”

There was a big blotch of black ink where Leo had scratched something out at the end and he hadn’t even signed it, when he’s somewhere, Gavin though setting off for the Amtrak train station. Somewhere!

“by bus is way faster, dummy” Gavin had said, “it’s only like 4 hours max”

“Yeah but by train would be so freaking dope!”

“It’s like 7 fucking hours!” Gavin said “I’m not going to sit my ass in a stinky train that smells of butts for 7 hours!”

But Leo absolutely would

Gavin bought his ticket, got on the train to Cleveland (delayed), and as he did a ton of bricks were lifted from his chest, there was no need to go any further, there in one of the seats was his fucking idiot.

“What the hell, Leo!” Gavin barked flopping on the seat next to his “What the fuck are you even doing!”

Leo clutched the cardboard tube that most likely contained the stolen paintings, seemingly at a loss for words for once

“Why the fuck are you ditching me?” Gavin spat

“I’m not!” Leo said finding his words “I really wanted you to come with me, but you can’t”

“Why the fuck not?”

“You shouldn’t waste your money on this, and you told me you like it with the Lieutenant,” Leo explained “and weren’t you going to ask him about the police academy thing? You can’t do that if we are wherever!”

“Who gives a shit about that?”

“I do!” Leo said vehemently, “You don’t have it to fuck it all up for a fuck up!”

“Fuck it, wherever you are going, I’m going” Gavin said settling on the seat, “even if you are taking us to fucking trashtown nowhereville on a fucking train out of all fucking things, you need someone there to tell you how much of a delusional deadshit you are”

Leo was quiet for a while, thinking or spacing out, with Leo it was probably the later, he sighed before he spoke “Jeez, fine! let’s go back…I’m done being a delusional deadshit for today”

“You sure?” Gavin said feeling self-conscious relief "What about losing your mind and shit?"

"You'll be there, right?" Leo shrugged "so it won't be that bad"

Gavin was saved from having to find what in the world to reply to that as the train, ignoring them, started its march,

“Oh, shit!”

“Phck!”

They sat stunned for a moment looking at each other, then Gavin grinned “Nevermind, we can go to Cleveland and get back, maybe we can even sell those fuck ugly things”

“Like, an adventure!” Leo said perking up, “The Lieutenant will ground you forever though”

“That’s on your dumbass!” Gavin said, pushing Leo away playfully, before taking out his phone to send a text to the old man.


End file.
